by Kellyn Roth
Claire looked away. Her thoughts swirled, her mind too full to settle on any one thought. He loves me. He wants me. He has given Himself up for me. I have only to accept. I could have such joy. If only I give up myself. If only I surrender.
She rose. “I’ll think about what you’ve said. For now, I need some time to myself. But thank you, Charlie. Talking to you has … has helped.”
“I’m glad.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Claire, even if I don’t say it often, and I’ll pray for you tonight.”
Did he sense that, like Hazel, she’d neared a crisis? Only through this death, she would gain life. If only … if only she could really believe. How could she be sure?
Perhaps there wasn’t a way to be perfectly sure. She gripped the banister hard as she ascended the stairway. At the top, she veered off her usual path to peek into the room where Alice slept, curled up on her side like always. She bent and kissed her child’s cheek, fingered her hair, and straightened the comforter. A servant had doubtless helped Charlie get her settled, and they had done well, but she imagined Alice’s face slackened further at her touch.
“I love you.” She breathed the words, quieter than a whisper, and left the room behind.
In her own chamber, she undressed herself. There was lukewarm water in the pitcher, and she poured it and washed her face and hands. Her face in the mirror seemed pale, and the dark circles under her eyes stood out.
She sighed and tilted her head from side to side. Crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes—her children made her laugh too hard. But otherwise, she still saw the same woman in the mirror she’d always seen.
Did she like that woman? Not exactly, no. Claire didn’t think she was a bad person. She’d told some lies, for her children’s safety, but surely that was permissible. Overall, she tried to be a good woman. Perhaps she tended toward mistrust and bitterness, but that was to be understood, wasn’t it?
She picked up her hairbrush and stroked until her arms were tired. This helped distract her from her thoughts, from the reality that she’d watched a woman die tonight.
I don’t like myself, she admitted. I suppose no one is perfect, but I could be better. And no matter how good or bad I am, I need help to get through this life. Help I can’t find within me.
Claire’s views on life felt shaken. She lay on her bed in silence, the darkness surrounding her. And somehow in that darkness, she found a light she hadn’t expected.
And in that light, Claire died.
Alice’s eyes popped open. For less than a second, she was confused about her surroundings, then she remembered she was at her uncle Charlie’s house in London, that Mummy had kept them there longer than usual because Mrs. Knight was sick … and that it was her own birthday.
She hopped out of bed and grabbed her robe and slippers. Shuddering in the cold, she ran all the way down the dim hallway to her mother’s room.
“Mummy!” Alice launched herself onto the bed and threw herself on her mother. “Get up! It’s my birthday—I’m ten.”
Mummy moaned. “Alice, what time is it?” She laughed and pulled her into a hug, nonetheless. “Happy birthday, darling. I love you.”
Alice sat back on her heels and grinned. “What are we doing today?”
“Dinner, of course, and Uncle Charlie and I bought you some presents.” She rose and walked to her vanity. “It’s hardly five, darling. But I understand you’re excited. I wonder if Ivy’s up.”
Alice felt a twinge of guilt but assured herself at that Ivy was probably having the time of her life, spoiled by Nettie, Jameson, and Grandmother. “I think she’s all right.”
“I hope so.” Mummy smiled. “I do have a birthday present for you. And one for Nettie and Ivy, too, when we see them.”
Alice narrowed her eyes. “Nettie’s birthday was forever ago, Mummy.”
“Well, it’ll be a belated one. It is belated on so many counts!” Mummy returned to the bed, hairbrush in hand. “Turn around.”
Alice flopped over the bed and submitted to being brushed within an inch of her life. “What is it?” Of course she didn’t really expect her mother to respond. She’d have to unwrap whatever it was before she could know.
But her mother did respond. “Well, last night I became a Christian.”
For a moment, Alice didn’t even breathe. Then she let it out in a whoosh. “Mummy, you can’t say that because you know it’ll make me happy. You have to actually believe.”
Mummy laughed so hard that Alice had to turn to glare at her. This wasn’t a matter to be taken so lightly.
“It’s not funny!”
“I didn’t think it was.” Mummy pulled Alice closer and kissed her cheek. “Darling, I’m being sincere. Of course, I have a lot to learn—perhaps you can teach me some of it—but I am now a child of God, same as you and Nettie.”
Alice blinked. Could it be true? “Really, Mummy?”
“Really.”
Her heart did a double flip, and she hugged Mummy close and kissed her cheek. “I’m so glad! Now we can be in Heaven together!” She giggled and bounced back on the bed. “How did you decide?”
“I feel as if …” Mummy’s face grew dim. “You’re ten now? So old. Old enough to hear this kind of news and be a brave girl.”
Alice’s emotions were as flighty as sparrows today—a moment ago, she’d been ecstatic, and now her soul felt colder than the ground. Mummy wasn’t one to look sad over anything. “What is it?”
“Mrs. Knight had to go to Heaven last night, Alice.”
Her mind mulled over the words, and she swallowed hard, trying not to feel sick. “I-I thought she’d get better.” Alice slumped against her mother. “I wanted her to get better.”
“I know.” Mummy pulled Alice into the tightest, best sort of hug that made her feel a little better. Not as much as it would have a few years ago, but still, there was safety in a mother’s arms as nowhere else. “I’m sorry, darling. I know.”
Too numb to cry, Alice cuddled against Mummy’s side and closed her eyes tight.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Seven Months Later
July 1872
London, England
Alice had an entire fortnight away from Miss Selle’s. Though it wasn’t much in the general scheme of things, it was enough for her mother to whisk her away from Norfolk to London to see her family.
She liked school. It greatly improved the more time one was at it—mostly because the homesickness got better and one came to an understanding with one’s teachers—and she found most of the work fairly easy. Nettie had seen to it that Alice was a bit ahead of her years. Now Alice saw the benefits of how hard her nanny pushed her.
Nevertheless, holidays were rare and prized, and none more precious than those spent with those she loved—and everyone was waiting at Uncle Charlie’s London house to hug and kiss her when she arrived.
As she hugged Ivy and kissed her mother and was exclaimed over by practically everyone, she said a prayer of gratitude for her aunt Christy. Alice hadn’t even known she existed until last year, and she seemed like a very silly woman. But, if she hadn’t had another baby, all her loved ones wouldn’t be in the same city all at once for the christening.
It was a little girl, and Grandmother said she was “a charming little thing.” Alice wondered if she was at all like Aunt Christy’s other baby, who was nearly a year old and grunted and pointed and threw tantrums.
No baby, Alice found, was quite like Ned. Still, she was determined to love them all despite their obstinacy.
Later that afternoon, they arrived at Aunt Christy’s big, fancy house and were instantly ushered to the second-time mother’s chambers. Alice didn’t understand at all at first—if Aunt Christy were sick, as women always seemed to get after babies came, why would they visit her?
It didn’t taken Alice long to understand, however. Aunt Christy wanted to talk.
She moaned about her poor, sore body and how fussy her baby was and how unsympathetic
her husband—who, as far as Alice could tell, was bearing her patiently—was and how little her friends cared about how she was dying. For Aunt Christy was convinced she was dying.
Alice felt a bit concerned—surely no one would go as far as to completely invent an illness for attention—but then she saw Mummy and Uncle Charlie. Every other sentence, they’d glance at each other and smirk.
Yes, Aunt Christy was definitely being ridiculous.
As the adults and a lost-looking Ivy clustered around Aunt Christy’s bedside, Alice noticed Nettie motioning her toward the adjoining room. The door which was cracked open. She tiptoed away and joined Nettie in the dim room.
A cradle sat in the middle, and Nettie stood over it. “This is your little cousin Arabella. Isn’t she pretty?”
Alice placed her feet carefully as she moved across the room. The little face, surrounded in white frills, was indeed very pretty—rosy with a tiny button nose and a puckered mouth. “I like her. Why doesn’t Aunt Christy talk about Arabella instead of her poor, aching head?”
Nettie chuckled softly and squeezed Alice’s shoulder. “Some women are like that, Miss Grace. See that you don’t ever become one, or you’ll drive your husband mad, your friends away, and your family to hating you. Choose joy.”
Alice nodded and reached out to touch a tiny fist balled on top of the coverlet Arabella was tucked beneath. “Well, I like babies, and I think I’ll have a dozen, so I won’t complain.”
“Good.” Nettie sighed. “Not every woman can have a dozen babies, Gracie. I doubt I will, though I would like them. And my mother just had me—well, the rest had to go to Heaven.”
Alice looked up at Nettie, hating the sudden sadness in her eyes. “I didn’t know you had brothers and sisters. I’m sorry.”
“Well, I never got to meet them. Some women don’t get to meet their babies—and some sisters, too. Sometimes God takes them up to Heaven before they’ve even arrived. We don’t know why, but …” Nettie blinked like she was trying not to cry. “It seems to happen a lot in my family.”
“Oh.” Alice wiggled her feet from side to side. This wasn’t a nice conversation at all. “Did it ever happen to you?”
Nettie’s face twisted. “No. Not exactly. But it could. I’d actually like you to pray for that, Alice—that we could have a baby come to live on earth with us. Jameson and me, I mean. Oh my, this isn’t at all what I meant to say.” She laughed under her breath and pulled a handkerchief out to dab her eyes. “I’m scared, Gracie, is all. Sorry. Can we start over?”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “Start what over?” She didn’t know what they’d begun or why.
“This conversation.” Nettie knelt and placed her hands on Alice’s shoulders, looking up at her now. “You’re so tall! Now, what I meant to say was, Jameson and I are expecting to have a baby this December. But God has to do it for us. He might decide to take the baby before it comes. We think He won’t or He already would have, but God has His own ways of working. Now, wouldn’t it be lovely to have our own little baby in five months—almost like having a little brother or sister for you?” Nettie’s eyes flickered over Alice’s face, and she knew that the answer was important to Nettie.
Still, this nonsense couldn’t go on. She was ten years old, for heaven’s sake!
Alice crossed her arms over her chest. “Nettie, are you with child?”
The sound her former nanny made was somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “Alice Chattoway! Whatever am I going to do with you? I remember very distinctly informing you that babies came from God, and we were going to keep to that until you were at least twelve.” She folded her arms. “Now, who told you otherwise?”
“Uncle Charlie,” Alice admitted. “He had to explain, you see, so I could help him breed his hounds some.”
Nettie moaned and ran a hand over her face. “Men! Barring Tom, of course, they’re all fools. Now’s not the time, but I don’t doubt he told you some things that didn’t make a lot of sense.”
Alice shrugged. It made a lot more sense than babies appearing out of the clouds. “Well, anyway.” She placed her lips close to Nettie’s ear and whispered, “Are you afraid your baby will die? Because I can pray it won’t.”
Nettie nodded, a barely perceptible jerk. “I am afraid. But God is taking care of us either way, and we must trust in Him.”
Alice swallowed and gave Nettie a hug. Not long afterward, everyone wanted little Arabella, and Alice stepped back. And she did pray for Nettie and her baby, because it had never occurred to her before that God could take someone before they arrived.
“I’m actually here to see Miss Alice and Miss Ivy Chattoway.” The tenor voice echoed about the foyer of Uncle Charlie’s house, and Alice cowered at the top of the stairs.
“I’ll ask Miss Chattoway if … if …” The butler was plainly a bit befuddled by Mr. Knight’s requesting an audience with the girls. “If the children are at home.”
As the butler shuffled off to find Mummy, Alice eased down the stairs.
Mr. Knight stood with his back to her, and he jumped a bit when she said his name. He whirled to face her. “Alice?” A smile lit up his face, then faded. “I don’t imagine your mother knows you’re here. I wanted to give her the option …”
Alice generally didn’t believe in giving parents options, but that was beside the point. She cocked her head. “You came to see Ivy and me? Why?”
Mr. Knight took a step toward her, then stopped, worried his hat about in his hands, and watched her. “Because I missed you.”
Nonsense. Alice folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t miss someone you hardly know. Why did you really come?”
“I want to know you.” Mr. Knight glanced around, up the stairs and to the door of the parlor. He continued fidgeting, and Alice didn’t like the way he couldn’t seem to settle.
“Let’s sit.” She backed up, lowered herself down on one of the steps, and brought her knees up to her chest. When he hesitated, she patted a spot beside her on the stair.
He chuckled and crossed the room, then dropped down next to her. “Your mother will kill us both.”
Alice raised her eyebrows. “Well, she won’t kill me.” Mr. Knight? Sometimes Alice hoped she would; other times, she wanted him to like her.
There were a lot of feelings involved, and it was awfully difficult navigating them.
“I honestly think she should sometimes.” He sighed. “Alice, I’ve made a wreck of our lives, haven’t I? And now I’ve lost everything.”
“Not everything.” Alice rocked back and forth thoughtfully. “You still have Ned. And … and me. I suppose.”
He shook his head. “I don’t, really. You’re not mine. I suppose I do have Ned, but now I have to raise him alone.” A dry little laugh escaped his lips. “I loved my wife. It stings as much now as it did seven months ago. And yet …” He sighed. “I want to be with you, Alice, and with Ivy. How can I manage that?”
If he thought Alice knew the answer, he was dead wrong. “I don’t know.” All she knew was that he’d hurt Mummy, and left them, and no explanation on earth was enough to make up for that.
But he was still her father, and a part of her wanted him more than anything in the world.
“I don’t know, either.” Mr. Knight scratched his chin. “But God knows. I sinned and made mistakes and lost myself in so many things, but He was there through it all and has forgiven me. I’m trying to find out what He would have me do now.”
Alice swallowed. He was talking to God? Well, what could she say to that? She hadn’t imagined anyone so villainous would actually pray.
“After Mrs. Knight died, I went to Pearlbelle Park with Ned, and I spent all my time out with him in the gardens and the fields. I’d watch him play and try to make sense of things. Just me, Ned, and God.”
Alice could understand why he might like that. It definitely sounded pleasant—and most of all, it sounded like the best way to spend one’s time. “Did you learn anything?”
&
nbsp; “A lot of things. Too many to name.” He smiled at her. “But I still haven’t found the secret of making a bad situation good. I only know that I must trust.”
“But you wouldn’t marry Mummy, would you?” She wrinkled her nose. That was a bit too forward. “What I mean to say is, well, that’s what some people might want.” Alice almost wanted it, too, on some days.
On others, she wanted him to leave. Leave and never come back.
“I’m not sure.” He placed his hands palms up on his knees. “The decision doesn’t lie with me. I’d like very much for us to be the best of friends either way, though.”
Alice’s insides flopped. “I … I don’t know if I can.” Was he safe? Was he telling the truth about spending time with God? Would he leave again … or was he here for good?
Too many variables.
“Perhaps we’ll let it sit for a time. We don’t have to rush.” Mr. Knight stood and brushed off his trousers. “I have all the time in the world.”
Alice placed a hand on her chin. “I do, too, I suppose.”
“Good.” He glanced up the stairs. “Oh, there are your mother and Ivy.”
Alice jumped to her feet and grinned up at Mummy. “I wasn’t sitting on the stairs,” she clarified with a bit of a grin. “I was … resting for a moment.”
But Mummy didn’t laugh at her. Her eyes were glued to his face. “Mr. Knight.”
He bowed. “Miss Chattoway.”
“What … that is to say, we appreciate your visit.” She glanced down and placed a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “Will you come to the drawing room?”
“Of course.”
In no time, they were all perched on the edge of their chairs.
“I only wanted to see Alice and Ivy.” Alice noticed his hands kept clasping and reclasping on his trouser legs. “I didn’t mean to disturb you—or force a conversation with Alice.”
Mummy shook her head, eyes flickering over to Alice affectionately. “Mr. Knight, you couldn’t force a conversation with Alice. She’ll do what she will. I’ve never known such an obstinate child.”
